SHEHBAZ SHARIF’S KASHMIR RANT RILES GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Pakistan is reeling under a severe and unprecedented economic crisis. India’s neighbouring country is at the verge of bankruptcy. There are disturbing reports about how people in Pakistan are facing an acute poverty and food shortage. But amid the worsening situation like this, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is busy raking up the Kashmir issue. Sharif raked up the Kashmir issue on the occasion of what they call “Kashmir Solidarity Day”, a propaganda tool against India by expressing support for separatists in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also used the occasion to issue anti-India statements.

Pakistan’s diplomats also raked up the Kashmir issue during a meeting at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. The remarks from Pakistan’s leadership clearly show that the priority of Islamabad is not to deal with the current economic crisis and extend relief to its suffering people. With more and more appalling pictures and videos of starving populations emerging every day from Pakistan, the focus of PM Sharif and his ministers, unfortunately, continues to be on the Kashmir issue and on diverting the country’s attention from the present plight. While the country is in deep trouble today with its economy being in a state of collapse, Sharif’s show of obsession with the Kashmir issue would be condemned by the global community. His rhetoric full of stuff about Kashmir will not draw even a single word of support from any global quarter. On the contrary, Sharif has made such remarks at the risk of losing sympathy of the international community which might otherwise be thinking of extending some financial assistance to the crisis-hit nation. There is no denying that the world community from which Sharif is seeking support to tide over the current crisis may distance itself from an “irresponsible” leader whose priority is not to address the problems that his people are facing.

The world has seen how Sharif has been presently running from one country to another, seeking financial assistance. When Sharif went to UAE begging for help, he was told to mend ties and make peace with India. He has also urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide a bailout package to Pakistan. No doubt, the IMF would also be looking at the credentials and background of leadership of Pakistan. What is lacking is the maturity on the part of the leadership in Islamabad. The PM of a country, which is reeling under a massive financial crisis, is focusing his attention on the issue like Kashmir.

So he can hardly be reliable and trustworthy. This is the perception that Sharif has created about himself at the global stage. How can the world community trust a leader who is raking up the Kashmir issue at a time when he must be using his entire energy in resolving the crisis? This question is being asked in various diplomatic circles of the world. “Shehbaz Sharif is busy stoking the Kashmir issue in spite of Pakistan’s faltering economy,” a US diplomat ridiculed the government in Islamabad recently. “By ranting about Kashmir amid a situation where people of Pakistan are facing severe food shortage, Sharif has cut a sorry figure at the UN also,” the diplomat points out. The world community feels that India did a commendable job by slamming Pakistan for raking up the Kashmir issue at the UN. New Delhi said that Islamabad harbours a deep sense of insecurity and orchestrated hatred for India and its secular credentials. Responding to Pakistan’s raising of the Kashmir issue during a UN General Assembly (UNGA) meeting, Counsellor in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, Rajesh Parihar, said on Monday that Islamabad repeatedly utters falsehoods about India. Parihar said irrespective of what the representative of Pakistan believes or covets, the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were, are and will always be an “integral and inalienable” part of India.